Campbell the Diffusionist: Boats, Not Brainwaves
TL;DR
- Campbell loved Jung for hermeneutics, not for origin stories.
- From Primitive Mythology (1959) onward he frames Near-East ➜ global motifs as a “single base” diffusion.1
- He jettisons “psychic unity” whenever radiocarbon dates and trade winds line up—famously the pig/bull/horse package across Eurasia and into Peru.2
- Interviews (An Open Life, 1990) repeat the mantra: “I’m much more interested in diffusion … than Jung ever was.”3
- The Historical Atlas (1983-88) opens with a map-heavy prologue titled “Diffusion, Convergence, and Parallelism.”4
- Net result: Campbell’s default model is caravans, outrigger canoes, and intermarriage; archetypes only explain resonance, never distribution.
1 · Psychic Unity vs. Diffusion: The Ground Rules
Long before “meme” entered the vernacular, two rival heuristics fought for explanatory turf:
| Camp | Core Claim | Usual Suspects |
|---|---|---|
| Psychic Unity | Humans share deep-structure archetypes that surface independently everywhere. | Bastian, Freud, Jung, Boasian “parallelism.” |
| Diffusionism | Similar stories travel along real highways (rivers, caravan trails, sea-lanes). | Tylor (late career), Heine-Geldern, Frobenius—and, quietly, Campbell. |
Campbell never repudiates archetypes; he just refuses to let them shoulder the whole load. Myths rhyme cross-culturally because brains are similar and because sailors get around. The rest of this article follows the paper trail.
2 · 1959: Primitive Mythology Kills the Psychic-Unity Monopoly
2.1 “Parallelism or Diffusion?” (ch. 5)
Pages 202-203 read like a polite throat-punch to isolationists:
“The ancient civilizations of the Old World … derived from a single base…the probability of a world-wide diffusion from the Near East…has been argued with bountiful documentation.”1
He goes on to show Malayo-Polynesian numerals and pig-cult rites converging on a Near-Eastern seed.
2.2 “The Great Diffusion” (ch. 10)
By p. 444 Campbell ridicules the Jung-only reading:
“The purely psychological reading of these parallels will not do at all, since a clearly…documented historical sequence has to be recognized…”2
He ticks through kurgan barrows, Yangshao pottery, Javanese seafarers, and Huaca Prieta gourds—each stamped with the same sacrificial-pig complex.
3 · 1962-68: Masks of God Expands the Web
- Oriental Mythology (1962) doubles down, tracing rice-cult and serpent worship eastward.
- Occidental Mythology (1964) drags the bull-games of Crete into a trans-Mediterranean exchange network.
- Creative Mythology (1968) concedes archetypes for creativity but not for historical provenance.
Net-net: diffusion is now Campbell’s null hypothesis for any tight motif cluster.
4 · Lectures & Interviews: Campbell vs. the Jungians
“I’m not a Jungian…I’m much more interested in diffusion and relationships historically than Jung was, very, very much so.” —An Open Life, p. 1193
The line first surfaces in early-1970s lectures (Myths to Live By) and becomes a stock answer whenever interviewers label him “Jungian.”
5 · 1983-88: The Historical Atlas Makes It Cartographic
Volume 2, Part 1 (Way of the Seeded Earth) opens with a 40-page prologue:
“Diffusion, Convergence, and Parallelism in the Formation of Cultures.”4
Maps plot crop packages, megalith alignments, and calendrical systems radiating from two primary hearths: the Fertile Crescent and South-China Seas. Psychic unity? Mentioned only to explain why migrants adopted foreign cults so readily.
6 · Side Essay: “Symbol Without Meaning” (1957 → 1969)
In this Eranos paper (later in Flight of the Wild Gander), Campbell tackles Upper-Paleolithic Venus figurines:
“…the span Pyrenees to Baikal is too coherent to be spontaneous invention; diffusion, not concurrent creativity, is overwhelmingly suggested.”5
He keeps the archetype (Mother/Death/Rebirth) but nails its spread to Magdalenian trade nets.
7 · Methodological Takeaways
- Layer Cake Model
- Psychological layer: innate “inherited images” à la Jung.
- Historical layer: seafaring, migration, and empire. Campbell says you need both, but the second decides the where/when.
Radiocarbon > Reverie Dates trump dreamwork. If a motif jumps oceans after navigable outriggers appear, assume canoes before collective unconscious.
Follow the Pigs His favorite diffusion tracer is the sacrificial-pig complex: Near East ➜ Indus ➜ Java ➜ Melanesia ➜ Peru.
FAQ
Q 1. Did Campbell ever abandon Jung’s collective unconscious?
A. No. He keeps Jung for meaning but rejects it as a sole driver of spread; diffusion supplies the logistics.
Q 2. Is “Hero’s Journey” a diffusionist claim?
A. Not really. Monomyth is a narrative schema; its global presence is explained by shared cognition plus millennia of story-exchange.
Q 3. Where can I see Campbell’s diffusion maps?
A. Volume 2, Part 1 of the Historical Atlas of World Mythology reproduces them in full color—look for the prologue section cited above.
Footnotes
Sources
- Campbell, Joseph. The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology. Penguin, 1959.
- Campbell, Joseph. The Masks of God: Oriental Mythology. Penguin, 1962.
- Campbell, Joseph. The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology. Viking, 1964.
- Campbell, Joseph. The Masks of God: Creative Mythology. Viking, 1968.
- Campbell, Joseph. Flight of the Wild Gander. Viking, 1969.
- Campbell, Joseph. Myths to Live By. Viking, 1972.
- Campbell, Joseph. An Open Life: In Conversation with Michael Toms. Harper & Row, 1990.
- Campbell, Joseph. Historical Atlas of World Mythology. 5 pts., Harper & Row, 1983-1988.
- Heine-Geldern, Robert. “L’Europe et L’Asie.” Anthropos 27 (1932): 595-607.
- Layard, John. Stone Men of Malekula. Chatto & Windus, 1942.
- Frobenius, Leo. The Riddle of the Pacific. London: Yale UP, 1932.
- Larsen, Stephen & Larsen, Robin. A Fire in the Mind: The Life of Joseph Campbell. Doubleday, 1991.
- Rensma, Roderick. “The Innateness of Myth.” Religious Studies Review 37 (2011): 143-159.